Category Archives: Getting Started with Panopto

!NEW! 5.2 Update coming June 25th, 2016

Information
Panopto will be updated to 5.2 on Saturday, June 25th, 2016. For detailed information with links to key features see below.

Panopto 5.2 Release Notes

 Headline features

  • Personal Folders

    • Each user can be given a personal folder called “My Folder”. This folder is a private sandbox where a user can create content before sharing with other people.

    • Administrators can configure which users are given personal folders through an identity provider setting or manually for a specific user.

    • Users can select their “My Folder” from the folder picker within in the web application, Panopto for Windows and Panopto for Mac.

    • Added “My Folder” link to the navigation bar as a shortcut to the user’s personal folder.

    • During upgrade, a “Users” folder is provisioned which contains all the personal folders. Additionally an “Archive” folder is provisioned within the “Users” folder to store personal folders for deleted users or for personal folders that the admin chooses to archive.

  • Curated Home Page

    • Users see a new home page when navigating to the web application. When unauthenticated, users see the most recent public content in the system and any public content curated by the administrator. After signing in, users see content curated by their administrator, content shared with the user, and the most recent content that they can access.

    • Administrators can create and re-order a playlist of sessions when curating the new home page for their users.

    • The new home page responsively scales to accommodate different browser sizes.

  • Edit in viewer

    • Sessions are now editable within the web viewer. Editing is cross-browser compliant and does not require Silverlight.

    • Existing capabilities ported to the new edit in viewer experience:

      • Create, edit and delete cuts

      • Create, edit and delete table of contents entries

      • Create, edit and delete thumbnails

      • Set the default thumbnail for the session

      • Create, edit and delete captions

      • Edit stream start time or delete a stream from the session

    • New capabilities added as part of the new edit in viewer experience:

      • Edit the session title and description in context

      • Undo/redo changes while editing

      • Give a custom name to a stream

      • Select which secondary stream to display at a given time in the session. This only applies to sessions with multiple secondary streams.

    • Changes made to a session in the new edit in viewer experience are automatically saved. Saved changes are committed to the session when the user chooses to publish. Unpublished changes can be revisited later by the same user or another user or the unpublished changes can be discarded.

    • Limitations

      • Currently the new edit in viewer experience does not support adding streams, editing slides, splicing sessions, editing WMV sessions, or saving a session as a new delivery. Additionally, the feature is not compatible with Internet Explorer 8.

      • To access these capabilities, please use the existing editor based on Silverlight.

  • Panopto for Windows Folder Navigation

    • Select a folder by navigating through the new folder tree control

    • Search for folders within the new folder tree control

    • Recently used folders are pinned in a quick access section in the new folder tree control

    • Folders that a user cannot access are rendered in the tree but disabled.

  • Panopto for Mac Post-Recording Dialog

    • Rename the recording or add a description immediately after completing the recording.

    • Option to immediately delete the recording prior to automatic upload.

 

Behavior changes (these features have changed from 5.1)

  • VCMS / Video Library

    • Added “Shared with Me” view which shows all sessions shared directly with the user or with a group in which the user is a member.

    • In Progress, Scheduled and Bookmarks views are only shown when relevant to the user

    • Renamed “All Sessions” view to “Everything” in the navigation

    • Renamed “Folders” section to “Browse” in the navigation

    • Moved the “Processing”, “Scheduled”, “All Folders” views under the “System” section for administrators and videographers

    • Session edit links now use a pencil icon and point to the new edit in viewer experience

    • Renamed “drop box” to “assignment folder”

    • Changed the option during user creation to “Create a folder for this user” to “Create a personal folder for this user”.

    • Changed the setting “Show Most Popular and Most Recent Sessions on Portal” to “Show Home Page to Unauthenticated Users”. This configures whether an unauthenticated user sees public content on the home page. If false, the user is prompted to sign-in before seeing any content.

    • Removed the left navigation bar for unauthenticated users

    • Added an identity provider option to store all generated folders from an LMS integration under a single specified parent folder.

    • Added new grid layout to all session list pages. Grid layout responsively scales to accommodate different browser sizes.

    • Increased the size of the Discussion text box and Notes text box. Added a “Post” button below the text box to allow new lines to be entered in the text box.

    • Added a popup dialog on the session modal and folder modal to alert if there are unsaved changes before navigating away

    • Folders in the subfolder bar were changed to a fixed width and now wrap instead of widening/narrowing based on browser width.

    • Moved the subfolder up arrow button next to the “Refresh” button

  • Panopto for Windows

    • Join an empty or in progress session by selecting the parent folder from the new folder tree control and then selecting the join session button.

    • Changed the default resolution for a secondary stream from 1280×1024 to 1920×1080

    • Added countdown timer in the post-recording dialog to automatically upload the recording in case the user forgets to click the “Upload” button.

  • Panopto Remote Recorder

    • Added 64-bit download option for Panopto Remote Recorder

    • Move schedules between Panopto Remote Recorders

    • Rename a Panopto Remote Recorder in the web application

  • .NET 4.5.2 is now a prerequisite for Panopto for Windows, Panopto Remote Recorder and Panopto Server

 

Bug fixes and minor changes

 

VCMS / Video Library

  • Added “Shared with Me” view which shows all sessions shared directly with the user or with a group in which the user is a member.

  • In Progress, Scheduled and Bookmarks views are only shown when relevant to the user

  • Renamed “All Sessions” view to “Everything” in the navigation

  • Renamed “Folders” section to “Browse” in the navigation

  • Moved the “Processing”, “Scheduled”, “All Folders” views under the “System” section for administrators and videographers

  • Session edit links now use a pencil icon and point to the new edit in viewer experience

  • Renamed “drop box” to “assignment folder”

  • Changed the option during user creation to “Create a folder for this user” to “Create a personal folder for this user”.

  • Changed the setting “Show Most Popular and Most Recent Sessions on Portal” to “Show Home Page to Unauthenticated Users”. This configures whether an unauthenticated user sees public content on the home page. If false, the user is prompted to sign-in before seeing any content.

  • Removed the left nav bar for unauthenticated users

  • Added an identity provider option to store all generated folders from an LMS integration under a single specified parent folder.

  • Added new grid layout to all session list pages. Grid layout responsively scales to accommodate different browser sizes.

  • Increased the size of the Discussion text box and Notes text box. Added a “Post” button below the text box to allow new lines to be entered in the text box.

  • Added a popup dialog on the session modal and folder modal to alert if there are unsaved changes before navigating away

  • Folders in the subfolder bar were changed to a fixed width and now wrap instead of widening/narrowing based on browser width.

  • Moved the subfolder up arrow button next to the “Refresh” button

  • Added option to folder search in navigation bar to search only for “My Folders” as opposed to only searching “All Folders”

  • Fixed ordered folders user interface to work on touch devices such as iPads

  • Changed the license page title from “Usage” to “License Plan”

  • Fixed an issue where a long user name in the Streams tab of the session modal could cause awkward wrapping

  • Disabled the “until” box on a scheduled recording is the repeat recording checkbox is unchecked.

  • Fixed an issue where long folder names in the navigation bar could overflow into the content area

  • Fixed an issue where non-localized text was shown in the processing list date filter for Thai, Chinese (Traditional), and Chinese (Simplified).

  • Fixed an issue where the loading indicator for the share user input could collide with the ‘x’ clear button in Internet Explorer

  • Narrowed the width of some columns on the processing list page to fit better on smaller monitors

  • Fixed a date issue with the custom date range controls on the stats page when localized in Chinese (Simplified)

  • Exposed date ranges as query parameters in the stats page to allow users to share a direct link to a stats page report

  • Fixed an issue where the “Make Public” link on notes was shown even though the folder setting “Allow viewers to make notes public” was false

  • Fixed an issue where the session and folder counts in the navigation bar wouldn’t update immediately after adding or deleting a session or folder

  • Fixed issue where an empty folder would show the same text as a search with no results

  • Fixed an issue an invalid external user identity could be input during batch user creation resulting in an invalid user account.

  • Removed the requirement to specify a folder for viewer access when batch creating a set of users.

  • Fixed an issue where the default text for the user name input would not clear on focus in the batch user creation modal

  • Fixed an issue where clicking the rebuild index button and then refreshing the page would restart the index rebuild process

  • Fixed an issue where rapidly clicking the submit button to create a scheduled session could create multiple duplicate recordings

  • Fixed an issue in the share control where the ‘&’ character was not handled correctly

  • Fixed an issue where trying to share something with a large number of people could fail

  • Fixed an issue when creating a new folder, drop boxes would be shown as parent folder options in the folder picker

  • Fixed an issue where non-localized dates were appearing on the session list page

  • Fixed an issue where a scheduled session date would be formatted differently than a non-scheduled session in the session list

  • Fixed an issue where a user attempting to create a subfolder could see a parent folder where they don’t have folder creation access

  • Fixed an issue where clicking through to a folder name from the user group access tab could fail to navigate to the folder modal

  • Wrapped the settings on the identity provider configuration page to ensure that the buttons are not pushed beyond the width of the page

  • Increased the size of the attribute mappings text box on the identity provider configuration page

  • Fixed an issue on the identity provider configuration page where it would be possible for the system to delete the wrong identity provider due to caching

  • Removed WebCT as an identity provider option.

  • Removed the “Password” tab on the user modal for a user from an external identity provider.

 

Sign-in

  • Sign-in link in top right corner of the VCMS has been changed to a button

  • Added support for SHA-256 for SAML

  • Improved sign-in performance for Canvas, D2L and SAML users

  • Restyled the Sign in/Sign out button in the sign-in page to apply brand color

  • Modified the sign-in layout to better accommodate localized languages

 

Settings

  • Added the setting “Editing enabled in Viewer” to choose whether creators edit sessions in the new edit in viewer experience or in the existing Silverlight based editor. Default value is true.

  • Added the setting “Who gets a Personal Folder automatically” which determines which set of users that sign in with the built-in Panopto identity provider get personal folders. To change this setting for an external provider, go to the identity providers configuration page.

  • Changed the setting “Show Most Popular and Most Recent Sessions on Portal” to “Show Home Page to Unauthenticated Users”. This configures whether an unauthenticated user sees public content on the home page. If false, the user is prompted to sign-in before seeing any content.

  • Added the setting “Hide inaccessible folder names” which controls whether a user can see the name of a parent folder they can’t access when they do have access to the subfolder. Defaults to false.

  • Added the setting “Default Landing Page” which controls which page users land on when they first sign in to Panopto. The options are “Home”, “Everything”, “Shared with Me”, and “My Folder”. Default is “Home”.

  • Added the setting “Panopto Option in Sign-in Dropdown” which controls whether or not “Panopto” is available as a sign-in option in the identity providers dropdown list in the web application, Panopto for iOS and Panopto for Android. Defaults to true.

 

Viewer

  • Fixed an issue where the recording date in the viewer header is not in the localized format.

  • Changed font colors to meet accessible contrast ratios

 

Editor

  • Fixed an issue to ensure that the correct frame is selected when setting a default thumbnail for the session

 

Integrations

  • Blackboard

    • Added custom role mappings for the Blackboard integration

    • Fixed an issue when after Blackboard course copy, the automatically created “Panopto Recordings” redirects to the Blackboard page for the original course

    • Fixed an issue where clicking on a Panopto link in Blackboard could create duplicate title bars

    • Fixed an issue where the Blackboard block could fail to populate course memberships for non-admin users

    • Fixed an issue where the Blackboard course tool links would be set as entry points to the course by default

  • Canvas

    • Made a change to truncate course names that are too long before attempting to create folders in Panopto

  • D2L

    • Course offering code (i.e. CS 101) can optionally be prepended to the folder name

    • Added a D2L identity provider setting to suppress access permission sync on LTI link

  • Moodle

    • Fixed an issue where non-localized text was displayed in the Moodle block

    • Fixed an issue where rolling sync didn’t respect role mappings

    • Modified the Moodle block to asynchronously load Panopto sessions after the Moodle page has loaded

  • Embedded viewer

    • Revised the styling for the embedded viewer

 

Panopto for Mac

  • Removed the first-run dialog after the user creates the first recording. This was done to accommodate the new post-recording dialog.

 

Panopto for Windows

  • Join an empty or in progress session by selecting the parent folder from the new folder tree control and then selecting the join session button.

  • Changed the default resolution for a secondary stream from 1280×1024 to 1980×1020

  • Added countdown timer in the post-recording dialog to automatically upload the recording in case the user forgets to click the “Upload” button.

  • Fixed an issue where it would be possible to change the folder for an existing session

  • Increased the input text size from 11px to 13px

  • Changed an alert about a potentially failed recording from alerting on when the device stops sending frames to when the frames stop writing to disk

  • Improved robustness during broadcast so that if a given device fails, the broadcast can continue with the other functioning devices instead of failing the entire broadcast

  • Changed “Session Folder” and “Session Name” to simply “Folder” and “Name” on the create recording tab

  • Changed setting name from “Enable advanced configuration of the primary video device” to “Enable advanced video device configuration” since this setting affects both primary and secondary video devices

  • Added “Resume” button for sessions in the manage recordings tab

  • Fixed an issue where a recording could silently stop when screen capture is used as the primary video and the resolution changes

  • Fixed an issue where Panopto for Windows might crash during recording when the user adjusts the microphone gain in Skype

 

Panopto Remote Recorder

  • Added 64-bit download option for Panopto Remote Recorder

  • Move schedules between Panopto Remote Recorders

  • Rename a Panopto Remote Recorder in the web application

 

Media and Content Processing

  • Added optical character recognition support for the extended Latin character set which includes Spanish, Dutch, French and German.

 

Panopto Mobile

  • Fixed an issue in Panopto for Android where a session that doesn’t have a podcast or tablet version is shown in the session list

 

Tools

  • Fixed an issue in the Remote Recorder schedule tool where a CSV or XML upload could take a long time to process

 

On-premises

  • Added support for Windows Server 2012 R2

  • Added support for SQL Server 2014

  • Added support for fully unique domains for multi-site deployments

  • Added ability to copy sessions across sites

  • Added ability to rename a site. Please contact Panopto Support when renaming a site to make sure that the server license remains valid.

 

Public API

  • Fixed an issue where a server fault could return a 200 response with a custom error message. A generic fault exception is now thrown.

  • Added GetRecorderVersion method to the API to retrieve the version for a given remote recorder

2. Installing PC Recorder

InformationThis document will walk you through installation of the Focus Recorder on a Windows based computer. 
The software can generally be run successfully on any computer that can run Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1 with the biggest consideration being given to having plenty of hard drive space available for long lectures.

Specifications

  • Windows Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8.1
    (32 and 64 bit) / Mac OSX 10.6(and above)
  • Adaptive Streaming Capture Format Disabled: Core 2 Duo 1.8ghz / 2GB RAM (recommended)
  • Adaptive Streaming Capture Format Enabled: Standard/High: Intel i3 2.5 ghz or 2.6ghz AMD Phenom IIX4 910.Ultra: Intel i7 2600 Processor (3.4GHz) or 3.2ghz AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
  • Mac: Intel CPUs required
  • Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
  • Recording Quality Options: High– 540MB/hr, Standard– 135MB/hr
  • FireWire ports for digital cameras
  • Windows Media Player 10 (or higher) required for broadcast
  • USB ports for Webcams or other recording devices
  • Disable sleep mode, screen savers and scheduled tasks

Installation

Step 1.)  Go to butler.hosted.panopto.com and click on “Log In”.  Choose Moodle, from the “Log In Using” drop down box. Log into Moodle using your Butler credentials. You will be automatically redirected to the Sessions page.

Step 2.) You can download the Recorder by clicking on the “Download Recorder” button on the Portal Page

rtaImage

You could also click this button as well, located in the top right of the sessions page.

rtaImage (1)

 

Both options will show a popup that will allow you to download the Recorder for your operating system.

 rtaImage (2)

Step 3.) Locate PanoptoRecorder.exe that you’ve downloaded and run the application

Step 4.) The installer will self extract and begin the installation.

Step 5.) Select a destination folder to install the recorder to. Click Next.

rtaImage (3)

 

Step 6.) Click Install and the installation will begin.

rtaImage (4)

 

Step 7.) Once the Recorder is installed you will be able to open the software. Login using the proper Server Address, Username and Password. (This information can be obtained from a Panopto Administrator at your organization).

rtaImage (5)

 

7. Viewing Panopto Analytics

Information

Panopto allows you to view statistics on the folder and the session level.

Viewing Statistics for a Folder

  1. To view statistics on a Panopto session, hover over the folder name and click the Stats button.  Stats
  2. The Statistics window will show you a graph of the number of views and the minutes viewed. The light green bar shows the number of views, the green bar shows the number of unique users, and the orange line shows the number of minutes viewed. You can change the scale of the graph to show the past day, the past week, the past month, the past year, or across all time.
  3. You will see an additional graph that will show the number of views and the length of each one.
  4. Finally, you will be shown a list of sessions sorted by minutes viewed. This will show you exact numerical values for views and minutes viewed per session.

Note:   You can use these same steps to view the analytics for a specific session by hovering over the session name and clicking the Stats button.  

4. Disable Email Notifications

InformationIf you are set as the Creator on a folder, you may be receiving email notifications when sessions finish encoding. If you do not want to receive these notifications, you may turn this option off.

Disable Email Notifications

  1. Go to http://butler.hosted.panopto.com. Ensure that the domain is set to Moodle, and click Log In. Moodle will ask you for your Butler username and password. Enter your credentials and click Login.
  2. Click your username in the upper right.  Then click User Settings.
  3. Under the Info button tab you will see your contact information listed. There is a check box for Send me notifications when sessions finish encoding. Uncheck this box, and then click Update contact info. You will see a message stating that your contact info has been updated.

5. Offline Recording

Information
There are time you may want to record content when you do not have Internet access.  This document explains how to record offline and upload content later.

You can record audio/video/screen cap/PowerPoint without network connectivity. The system will capture the content and store the material locally on the recording computer. Once network connectivity is restored, an upload of the content to the Panopto server will be initiated.

To record offline

  1. Open the Panopto Recorder and click the Log In with Moodle button. Ensure the Remember Me box is checked.
  2. Once you have logged in, click the folder selection arrow.  Down arrow
  3. Instead of selecting a specific folder, select Offline Recording at the bottom of the screen.  Screen Shot 2014-07-17 at 11.09.25 AM
  4. Click the Record button to begin recording. When finished, click Stop.
  5. Once your recording is complete, you will be taken to the Recording Status tab. To add your recording to the server, click Upload to Server Screen Shot 2014-07-17 at 11.11.29 AM  and select a folder.

8. Using the Panopto Block in Moodle

Information

Using the Panopto Block

Live Sessions
This area will display the recording sessions that are currently viewable live. Only sessions that have Broadcast Recording enabled will be viewable.

Completed Recordings
Any completed recording sessions will appear here. Clicking an entry in this list will open a Panopto player to view the session. You can also click Show All to display all sessions for the course.

Podcast Feeds
This section provides links to podcast feeds (audio or video) that can be subscribed to and updated as new recordings are completed.

Links
This area provides links to download the Panopto recorder or to edit settings for the course’s folder on the Panopto website.

3. Provisioning Your Moodle Course for Panopto

InformationIn order to prepare your course to accept Panopto recordings it must be provisioned first.  This needs to be done for each individual course that you want add recordings to.

 

  1. Go to the Moodle course that you want to use with Panopto.
  2. Ensure that Editing Mode is turned on. If not, you can enable it by clicking on   Turn editing on   in the upper right hand corner of the page.
  3. Locate the Panopto  block  and click on Provision Course.

Panopto provision course button

4. Click Back to Course

back to course button

Now your Moodle course is configured for use with Panopto.  By default your students are all set up with VIEW access.

 

6. Launch Recorder from Web Interface

InformationThe ability to launch the Recorder from directly within your Panopto site, quickly eliminates locating the Program within your Start Menu, or the shortcut on your Desktop. This allows for an easier workflow, with less distractions.

Launching the Focus Recorder from the Web Interface

Installation & Setup

The Panopto Recorder is very small and very easy to install. It can only be installed on computers using Windows XP, Vista, 7, or 8 (32 and 64 bit). Your computer should also have a large amount of free drive space to capture your video/recording.

Launching from Web Interface

Open your Web Browser, and point the browser to http://butler.hosted.panopto.com and log in through Moodle.

Click the green Create button and choose the option to Record a new session

 

Click the “Launch Recorder” button that appears in the new dialog box. Clicking this passes your credentials to the Focus Recorder, and launches it, without you ever having to enter your credentials a second time.

1. Installing the Mac Recorder

Information
This document will walk you through the installation of the Panopto Mac Recorder for Intel based Mac computers running at least OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.x.

Install and Setup

This document will walk you through the installation of  Panopto for Mac for Intel based Mac computers.

*Note- Panopto for Mac is not supported on Apple computers running a 32-bit CPU architecture

Specifications

OS Version
Mac OSX versions 10.9.x (Mavericks), 10.10.x (Yosemite), 10.11.x (El Capitan) supported
Mac OSX versions 10.10.x (Yosemite) or 10.11.x (El Capitan) recommended

Note that the encoding engine provided by Apple and leveraged by Panopto is more efficient in OSX 10.10+. Users who upgrade from OSX 10.9 will see marked performance improvements.

**To download Panopto for Mac 4.9 which is compatible with OSX 10.8 please click here.

Processor
Standard Quality: Intel Core i3 or Core M recommended – Default Setting
High or Ultra Quality: Quad-Core Intel Core i7 recommended**

Panopto for Mac 5.0 is expected to work on most Mac systems running Mac OSX version 10.9+ with an Intel Core i3 or Core M and the default Panopto configuration. This includes a Primary audio and video stream and a single secondary video (screen capture) with the quality level set to the default ‘Standard Resolution’.

Note that Standard Quality is roughly equivalent to the quality in Panopto for Mac v4.9.

**Considerations for High or Ultra Quality

If you wish to increase the quality of the capture, it is recommended that you run at least a recent (2014+) Quad-Core Intel Core i7 processor.

Since environmental variables such as CPU speed, additional applications running, and other items can consume system resources, it is highly recommended that you perform tests when increasing quality on a particular system prior to using it in production.

Note that additional streams will increase the system demands, especially at High or Ultra quality.

For more information about the quality levels Panopto for Mac can capture, please see Panopto for Mac Capture Resolutions

Memory
4GB RAM

Storage
Standard Quality: 270MB per hour
High Quality: 540MB per hour

Other
Built in iSight camera (optional)
USB ports for webcams or other recording devices
Disable sleep mode, screen savers and scheduled tasks

Panopto for Mac Installation

1.  Download Panopto for Mac by logging-in to your Panopto site and selecting “Download Recorder”

2.  Run the “Panopto.pkg” file

3.  Click Continue

Introduction

4.  Select which Drive to install Panopto for Mac to and click Continue
User-added image

5.  Click Install

6.  If prompted, insert credentials for installation. Click Install Software

Password

7.  Click Close

Completed_Installation